Voters Still Hate Obamacare

The Democrats hope that the supposed success of signing up 7 million Obamacare participants will blunt the potency of the issue in November. If this Rasmussen survey is any indication, however, they have a long way to go:

Unfavorable opinions of the new national health care law are at their highest level in several months, while the number who think the quality of care in this country will get worse is at its highest level in over three years.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters have at least a somewhat unfavorable opinion of the health care law, with 43% who view it Very Unfavorably. Just 39% have a favorable view of the law, including 16% with a Very Favorable one.

With 43% of voters viewing the law “very unfavorably”–undoubtedly more in the red and purple states where Democrats are trying to defend Senate seats–it is hard to see how Obamacare can be anything but a millstone around the party’s neck. The same survey found that 53% think the quality of health care will be worse under the new law, up from 47% last month. Even more voters, 59%, think Obamacare will raise the cost of health care. That is a brutal double whammy: most voters think Obamacare will cost more, but provide worse care.

There are more shoes yet to drop: in late 2014, in time, I believe, for the election, millions more Americans will receive notices to the effect that they have been kicked out of their employer-sponsored plans, or that the cost of using those plans has gone up (or the coverage has gone down). So it is hard to see where the Democrats are going to find relief.